Let us now see what was Mr. Hastings's business during this long protracted visit. First, he tells you that he came there to reduce all the state and dignity of the Nabob. He tells you that he felt no compunction in reducing that state; that the elephants, the menagerie, the stables, all went without mercy, and consequently all the persons concerned in them were dismissed also. When he came to the abolition of the pensions, he says,--"I proceeded with great pain, from the reflection that I was the instrument in depriving whole families, all at once, of their bread, and reducing them to a state of penury: convinced of the necessity of the measure, I endeavored to execute it with great impartiality." Here he states the work he was employed in, when he took this two hundred pounds a day for his own pay. "It was necessary to begin with reforming the useless servants of the court, and retrenching the idle parade of elephants, menageries, &c., which loaded the civil list. This cost little regret in performing; but the Resident, who took upon himself the chief share in this business, acknowledges that he suffered considerably in his feelings, when he came to touch on the pension list. Some hundreds of persons of the ancient nobility of the country, excluded, under our government, from almost all employments, civil or military, had, ever since the revolution, depended on the bounty of the Nabob; and near ten lacs were bestowed that way. It is not that the distribution was always made with judgment or impartial, and much room was left for a reform; but when the question was to cut off entirely the greatest part, it could not fail to be accompanied with circumstances of real distress. The Resident declares, that, even with some of the highest rank, he could not avoid discovering, under all the pride of Eastern manners, the manifest marks of penury and want. There was, however, no room left for hesitation: to confine the Nabob's expenses within the limited sum, it was necessary that pensions should be set aside."